by Gary Giller

Beginning Thurs., Sept., 11 at the Sharbot Lake Legion, the Center Stage Cafe will once again be providing an evening of live music on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Hosted by the Feral Five (Terry Reynolds, Jim MacPherson, Dennis Larocque, Dave Limber and Gary Giller) the Center Stage Cafe is designed to provide a venue for good quality, amateur, musical entertainment. The evening runs from 7-9:30 pm, and admission is $5 at the door.

Running for its 3rd consecutive year, the Cafe has enjoyed a wide variety of local musicians, and has received great audience support from the community. Thurs., Sept. 11 will feature well known musician, Adrian O'Connell, who is guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser with his resonant voice, wonderful musicianship and varied, folk-based repertoire. O'Connell is a former member of the Irish-Scottish group, The Clansmen, and the Irish Rovers group.

Thurs., Oct. 9 will see Rob and Nancy Moore return again to the Cafe stage backed by their recently formed band made up of Gabby White (fiddle and vocals), Dan Keeler (lead guitar), Mike Dellios (bass) and Nathan Paul (drums). The audience is sure to be delighted by the combination of this accomplished group of musicians as they add a wonderful fullness to Nancy's angelic vocals.

To close off the fall series, Thurs., Nov. 13 will feature the cover band, One Busted Ego. Consisting of Adam Lake (guitar & vocals), Joe Normalie (drums & vocals), Steve Curtis (lead guitar & vocals), Marc Giroux (guitar & vocals) and Tom Baird (bass & vocals), this newly formed band is really impressing its audiences with its easily recognized country and rock tunes.

Opening and closing each evening, the Feral Five usually starts off with a set of eclectic songs for the audience's listening pleasure, but makes sure to end off the night with a set list designed to get folks burning up energy on the dance floor. If you enjoy live music, be sure to set aside the 2nd Thursday of the month at the Sharbot Lake Legion. It's well worth the modest price of admission.   

This year's Parham Fair promises to be a showcase for local agricultural, horticultural and artisan businesses and hobbyists alike. Pick up your membership for the Parham Agricultural Society at any Parham merchant or at Asselstine's Hardware in Verona. Then check out the more than 200 competitions to enter to showcase your own work! You can try your hand at displaying your garden's bounty from flowers, herbs, pumpkins to preserves. Enter the baking contests - there are categories for all ages. Try your hand at crafts - homemade calendars, gift baskets, puppets, scrapbooking, woodcrafts, sewing, knitting, crocheting and quilting. Looking for some summer projects for your kids? There are children's crafts, baking, writing and art competitions ranging from preschool to high school student groups. Not feeling up to sharing your own work? Enjoy touring the Palace displays of all of these contests and then tour the many craft and display booths featuring local businesses and artisans on the fairgrounds. Opportunities to participate don't end there. You can also enter the Cattle Show, the Horse Draw, or the Pet Show. This year's Country Fair Games have expanded to include the adult hay bale rolling, nail hammering and log sawing contests. The annual favourites, egg toss and pie eating, will be sure to draw both competitors and delighted audiences.

Admission to the grounds is $5/day; 12 years & under free; Saturday Ride-All-Day bracelets are $20 in advance at local merchants, Jo & Marg's, Parham General Store, Asselstine Hardware (bracelets are $30 if purchased on the fair weekend) Check it all out at www.parhamfair.ca!

Once a year the North Addington Education Centre in Cloyne is transformed into a vast and varied art and craft venue for artists and artisans from all over the province. The show, which is free to visitors, has been running for decades and once again this year it offered up a mind-boggling selection of work from over 70 exhibitors.

The artists' booths cover the entire ground floor of the school. Visitors spend many hours leisurely viewing the work and are hard pressed to depart without some unique hand made treasures. Pottery, glass work, wooden crafts, jewelry, fine art and photography, quilts, knit goods and body products were just a few of the items up for grabs, not to mention a number of other unique treasures that caught my eye.

Lisa Driscoll of Stirling, ON, owner of Hetty Jean Handmade Designs makes unique hand sewn creatures from felt, fleece and fur. Her creatures are cute and colorful and she aims to make each with its own unique character. Her bats boast clever teeth made from zippers and their wired wings can be manipulated to open and close. Her “Hugglies” are small, bright uni-blob-bodied monsters that Lisa calls “huggable uglies”. They make cozy and cuddly friends for youngsters of all ages. Lisa's other creatures include giraffes, cats, dinosaurs, owls, and many more. Her businesses name derives from Lisa's two grandmothers - Hetty, her father's mother and Jean, her mother's mother, who both taught her how to sew and inspired her to create the imaginative sewn animals that suit the young at heart of all ages.

Photo: Painter Carol Jones of the All Creatures Great and Small Studio and her feather paintings at the 2014 Cloyne Showcase

Another artisan working in one of the more unusual mediums at the show was Carol Jones, who hails from Dunsford, Ont. near Bobcaygeon, where she has a studio called All Creatures Great and Small. Jones is a painter, who instead of painting on canvas or board, opts to ply her brush to feathers - specifically, the tail feathers of wild turkeys. Her motivation came after seeing a similar way of painting when she visited western Canada years ago. “I wanted to create my own little niche, so I chose to make feather paintings instead of regular ones.” Her subject matter includes wildlife, landscapes, fantastical and aboriginal scenes, butterflies and animals that include foxes, bears herons and more. Prior to painting, Jones uses a small Dremel tool to smooth down the central quill on each feather in order to avoid having to paint on its ridges. Jones said that it took a lot of experimenting before she finally got her technique down. Once the painting is complete she covers the quill tip at the bottom end of the feather by attaching additional decorative feathers and finishes them off with a piece of circular leather adorned with a semi precious stone. The feather paintings are then mounted on matte board and framed in a shadow box. New to her work is the recent addition of crushed glass, which she applies to certain painted sections on the feather. She describes these new works as her “newest fantasy line of paintings” and the glass gives them a sparkling, shimmering surface that adds to their more mystical feel.

Anyone who missed the show can view the work of these two artists by visiting www.carolsfeatherart.com and Hetty Jean on facebook.

If you're a lover of all types of Celtic music, a concert on Sunday August 24, 2pm at the MERA Schoolhouse in McDonalds Corners is the place to be. Performing will be the Celtic Rathskallions, an Ottawa-based duo who have entertained and impressed Celtic music lovers across Ontario and around the world during their more than 1,200 performances.

Wendy Moore is the founder, manager and one of the lead performers of The Celtic Rathskallions, which she created in 1998. Before that, she performed as oboist and English horn player with the Kingston Symphony for 10 years and with numerous chamber music groups. During the concert, she will play oboe, English horn, tin whistle, Celtic harp, bodhran, shuttle bagpipes, and sing and stepdance.

The other half of the duo is Arthur McGregor, the owner and founder of the Ottawa Folklore Centre, an experienced, versatile performer who has played on stage since he was 12 years old. Besides being a Rathskallion, he leads community singing, writes songs about topical issues, and arranges unusual versions of national anthems. A master of many instruments, Arthur will perform on guitar, banjo, mandolin, autoharp, bodhran, and djembe, as well as supplying percussion and singing.

Opening for the Rathskallions will be Japhy Sullivan, accompanied by his brother Noah and sister Margaret. They are members of the multi-talented Sullivan/Dorner family, which features a range of accomplished singers, songwriters and musicians.

This concert is presented in association with MASC, (Multicultural Arts for Schools and Communities), which has been offering educational arts events for 25 years in the Ottawa area.

Tickets are $20 and are available on-line at Ticketsplease.ca or by telephone 613-485-6434, and can be picked up at the concert. Children under 16 are free. For more information, please visit meraschoolhouse.org.

To commemorate the County’s 150th Anniversary in 2015, the County is holding a Quilt Design Contest to solicit designs for, and commission the creation of a commemorative wall hanging quilt. Entries must be submitted by Friday, Sept. 26, after which judging will take place and the winner(s) will be announced at the October 15th County Council meeting. The artist who submits the winning design will be commissioned to create the quilt for unveiling at the Frontenac County 150th Showcase next year: August 28, 29, 30, 2015. The contract with the winning artist will include compensation of $2,000.

Submissions will be evaluated based on originality and creativity, ability of the artist, and the quilt’s visual appeal reflecting themes of “past, present, future” in the context of the County of Frontenac’s unique pristine natural environment, lifestyle choices and strong, resilient, diverse, rural communities. The contest is open to all full- and part-time residents of Frontenac County.

See attachment for complete contest rules, which are also posted on www.frontenaccounty.ca.

The County of Frontenac’s 150th Anniversary

Save the date for The Frontenac 150th Showcase: August 28-30, 2015. You will want to visit Centennial Park in Harrowsmith for this three day celebration, with a preliminary schedule of events including: an opening ceremony, parade, fundraiser barbeque, heritage exhibitions, vendor kiosks, food & refreshments, family activities, live music, plowing match, heritage ball, Sunday brunch, headlining concert and closing ceremony.

Hundreds of community events happen every year throughout the Frontenacs. If you’re planning an event for next year in the County of Frontenac, turn it into the “150th Edition” and become part of history! If you want to make your 2015 community event part of Frontenac history or you’d like to volunteer for The Frontenac 150th Showcase, please contact Alison Vandervelde, Communications Officer at 613-548-9400 ext 305 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

There is nothing better than witnessing a talented artist selling their works at an art show. That was the case of Lisa Johnson, one of many artists who set up shop at the Art Exhibition and Sale that took place at Bon Echo Provincial Park last weekend. Johnson was busy attending to a customer when I visited her booth on Saturday afternoon. Mazinaw Lake cottage owner Christine Post was looking at a number of paintings and ended up purchasing one of Johnson's paintings titled "Rekr's Rock", which Post she said she can see from her cottage.

Johnson is no stranger to the magic of the landscape at Bon Echo. Her paintings are proof that the landscape is somehow in her blood and that might just be because she has been cottaging on Mazinaw Lake since was a wee one.

An honours graduate from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1996, Johnson has been painting for 25 years. She returned to the Bon Echo show after a decade of absence, offering up an impressive selection of large and small oil landscapes that caught the eyes of both browsers and buyers at the show.

Johnson, who sells her work at a variety of galleries and shows in Toronto, London and Windsor, painted her Bon Echo inspired pieces en plein air (in the open air). She paints in the tradition of the Group of Seven artists who also painted this landscape decades ago. Included in her display was the paint-smeared box that accompanies her on hikes and on rides in her small motor boat where many of her creations are made.

“The en plein air process enables me to observe and capture what I see. It's a very observational way of working. Later, back in the studio I use these paintings or sketches to create larger, more abstract works that come more out of my head and have more to do with how I feel about the landscape, but that are also a direct result of that initial en plein air study process.” Her works capture both the majesty and the ever changing beauty of the landscape, which she describes as “powerful, spiritual and magical places that have been attracting artists here for centuries.”

Some of the works appear soft and flowing with layers of colour that are blended together seamlessly, like one large work of the famed Mazinaw rock painted in soft, subtly changing oranges and brown. Others of the same landscape are more hard edged and bold, painted with fat, textural and generous applications of paint that together make up the shapes that define the unique landscape. In many works Johnson is able to create a sense of movement, as in the clouds and sky in the painting "Rekr's Rock", which seem to swirl and move overhead. She said her former experience as a dancer is what informs the movement in her pieces, and which also underlies the fact she has experienced first hand for years how the landscape that surrounds her is always changing. “It's amazing how everything, the elements, the light and colour can change in an instant.”

Johnson feels very much “connected to the history of painters who came here to paint, from A.Y Jackson to Charles Comfort and Arthur Lismer.” Last year she hiked to the location where A.J. Casson painted one of his works. “ I like the idea of connecting with artists of the past but finding new ways to do it.” Johnson's aim, she said, is always to “capture the feeling of a place. Not so much the photographic image but the space, the light, the movement and the atmosphere.” Her work demonstrates the fact that it takes a talented and experienced painter to do justice to the landscape of Bon Echo and Johnson is one artist in a long line who have managed to do just that.

A selection of Johnson's work will be at the Colin Edwards Gallery located at Bon Echo Park in the latter half of August. Her work is also available at Quinn's of Tweed Fine Art Gallery. For more information visit www.lisajohnsonart.ca

On July 13 a puppet show extravaganza hit the stage at the Sharbot Lake branch of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library (KFPL). The two puppeteers, Brenda MacDonald and Sarah Balint, have been on the road touring various library branches for the past few weeks. They performed two classic children's stories. The first was “Strega Nona”, written and illustrated by Tommie dePaola and the second was “Three Little Pigs”. Both books are available to borrow through the branch near you.

At the Sharbot Lake performance the house was packed with children from all around the area, starting from the age of 5 months. The stage was elaborate and circus-themed. One boy, when asked what his favourite part about the stage was, said, “I like it because it's red.”

“Strega Nona” translates to Grandmother Witch, and the story centres around a magical old woman who seeks out the help of Anthony, a boy who is thought to be inattentive, as she is getting rather old. However, Anthony creates trouble when Strega Nona leaves her house under his care for a few days. He does not heed a warning to leave the pasta pot on the stove alone, causing it to overflow and fill first the house, then the entire village with pasta, with terrifying and funny results.

The show was full of comedic moments and stirring suspense.

During intermission one of the puppeteers, Brenda MacDonald, led a song with the children. As some of the kids knew the song, they stood up and sang it out with Brenda, much to her delight. This was followed by a reading of John Burningham's “Mr. Gumpy's Outing” [Editor's note – the best picture book ever written, with the possible exception of Mr. Gumpy’s Motor Car].

The puppet show then continued with a fantastical performance of “Three Little Pigs” which literally had the audience rolling on the floor in hysterics. Brenda and Sarah really understood their audience and clearly love what they do. They were welcoming and entertaining from the get-go. They made sure to credit the audience for their energy; as Sarah said, “They were our best audience all week.”

Sarah and Brenda will be performing again on August 15 at the Sydenham branch at 10am. They will be performing two fox-related puppet shows, one based on the hit song “What does the fox say?” and the other based on the children's story “The Fox and the Grapes”.

Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS) and the Grace Arts Committee are pleased to announce a photography exhibit featuring work from local photographers, Louise Day and Ryan R.F. Wilkinson at the Grace Centre from August 1 - September 22. A free reception and artist talks will take place on Saturday August 16 from 1-2:30pm.

Louise Day grew up in Ridgetown, Ont. Her mother, an artist, worked in graphite portraits, landscape paintings in oil, acrylic and water colour. Louise graduated as an R.N., married Dr. Gordon Day and moved to Verona in 1963. She worked in Family Practice with her husband for 37 years. Day became interested in photography and took lessons from Kim Ondaatje of Blueroof Farm, who taught her “how to see”. Many of her images were taken in the gardens and woods at Blueroof. Day entered won first prize in the category of “In Praise of Plants” in Equinox magazine’s photo contest. She has had a number of solo exhibitions.

Ryan R. F. Wilkinson is virtually new to the photography world, coming from a background of oil painting and pencil drawing influenced by his grandfather, Alfred Karu out of Estonia.

A graduate of Sheridan College arts program, Ryan has blended his abstract eye for the world with peaceful and simple photography using various sources of natural light, and timeless moments. Ryan is always looking to learn, grow, and develop as an artist with an open mind, and open eyes through various subject matter including landscapes, people, and street photography.  

It started out as an idea for an outdoor concert back in the winter of 2005 but has turned into a major festival and a labour of love for Duane and Donna Thibault for the past ten years.

For the 10th anniversary of the Flinton Jamboree, some of the perennial favorite acts are returning, such as White Pine, Steve Pitico and South Mountain, the Tebworth Brothers, and Dallas Daisy. Among the newcomers are the Ducharme family, a father and sons band who come from one of the best-named towns for a Bluegrass band, River Valley, which is located north of Highway 17 halfway between North Bay and Sudbury. The Ducharme family is the featured band on the Friday night (August 1) of the three-day festival. They appear at 7:30 pm.

The festival headliner, who will be performing on Saturday night (August 2) at 7:30 pm, is David Church.

Church, who hails from Lancaster, Ohio, has an affinity for traditional country music, and is renowned in North America as a singer “who sounds like Hank”. He performs his own songs as well as a number Hank Williams tunes, but as long-time U.S. based music promoter Joe Sullivan has said, “He is not a Hank imitator; he is someone who performs Hank's songs.” David Church will be backed up by Steve Pitico and South Mountain.

Weekend passes for the festival cost $35 ($55 with camping). Day passes are $20 for the all day and evening Saturday show, which kicks off at 11am, and $10 for the Friday evening or the Sunday 11 am to 4 pm show. For advance tickets, call 613-336-0995. Day passes will be available at the gate. (Note – a full schedule will be published in the Frontenac News on July 24)

This year, invited by fellow artist Carla Miedema, landscape artist Barbara Mendham joined the Cloyne Studio Tour and opened her studio to tour goers for the first time. From July 11 – 13, Mendham, who paints from her home studio at 168 Sheldrake Road just north of Cloyne, had a large display of her work set up in a tent beside her home.

Mendham has been painting in acrylics on and off for 30 years but raising her two children left her little time to paint on a regular basis. Her children are long grown and she is now a grandmother of four, so she has been able to paint regularly for over a decade since she retired from her work as a travel agent. Years ago in Windsor, Ontario, Mendham studied painting for a semester at college and currently takes weekly private classes. Her work focuses primarily on the landscape that surrounds her home and she says that winter scenes are some her favorite themes to paint since they bring her what she describes as “a sense of quiet and calm.” She also enjoys painting buildings and has done numerous private commissions of cottages, which she said is a popular request since people have “such an emotional attachment to their cottages. I don't know what it is but people will often want a painting of their cottage and will hang it there. When it comes time to leave they will often take the painting home with them and then bring it back and hang it up when they return.”

Mendham prefers to paint her landscapes from photos, often from her own but sometimes from pictures or photos from magazines that inspire her. One work of an old mill was done from a picture she found in a magazine. She says that still lives are of no interest to her. “I have never felt the urge to paint flowers or a bowl of fruit or other still life material. I think the fact that I like looking at landscape paintings myself has a lot to do with why they are what I most chose most to focus on.”

Mendham’s medium of choice is acrylics. She has tried watercolors but finds them too unforgiving. “In the same vein I don't have the patience to paint in oils since you have to wait for every layer to dry before you can continue.” She adds, “There is an old joke that goes, ‘With acrylics, you can really hide all of your mistakes’”

Asked what the most challenging part of her work is she said “Getting beyond that point where you are not liking what you are painting and just knowing that you have to keep on going until you get the painting that you like.” Asked what she most enjoys she replied, “Most everything really about painting is fun. I find it very relaxing.”

Barb's husband Derek who is a hobby carpenter makes the frames for Barb's work often using cedar, pine or old barn board. “The pictures Barb paints lend themselves very nicely to wooden frames rather than to newer ones,” Derek said, which I would tend to agree with.

Mendham's works range in price from $100-$250 and she sells cards as well. She welcomes commissions and those wishing to visit her home studio can call her at 613-336-9518 to make an appointment. For those who missed the Cloyne Studio Tour, Barb will be showing her work at the upcoming Friends of Bon Echo Art Exhibition & Sale from July 25 - 27 and then again at the Cloyne Art Showcase in August.